Keep Me Sane
by hermyandronforevr
Summary: Draco and Hermione have to live together in a cabin for a month to get used to each other. Will they kill each other or will they become friends...or more? Ch. 3 up!
1. I have to live with Draco Malfoy?

**I did use a plot device. They are helpful, you know. Please review and tell me what you think. This is the same "Keep Me Sane" as before. But since I have to completely re-write it there will be some changes.**

**Chapter 1: I have to live with Draco Malfoy?**

Hermione awoke to a loud banging noise on her bedroom door. She rolled over and looked at her clock. It was eight o' clock in the morning. She groaned and covered her head with her blanket. The knocks continued until she yelled, "Summer!" to the door and pulled her pillow over her head. She still had a month of summer vacation left and she wasn't about to start getting up early yet.

"You've got that meeting with your Headmaster today!" her father called through the wooden barrier.

"Oh!" she cried. She shot out of bed and ran to the bathroom. She quickly jumped in the shower. When she got out she stared at her reflection after getting dressed. "Well, should I blow dry my hair and let it be big and poofy…or should I let it air dry and let it be big and poofy?"

She decided that letting it air dry would be less would less work. She walked into the kitchen where her mother was cooking eggs. "'Morning, dear," she said.

"Good morning," Hermione replied, yawning.

"Were you talking to yourself in there?" Mr. Granger asked as in entered the kitchen.

"No, dad," Hermione answered. "I was talking to my hair. I'm not crazy." She had to laugh at the look on his face.

"Well, come on," he said. "I've got to go to work so I'll take you to the train station."

"Why can't he do that poppy thing?" Mrs. Granger asked. "It would be easier wouldn't it?"

"I don't think there are any Apparation areas around here," Hermione replied. "So either way I'd have travel. This way is just as complicated as the other."

"Ah," was all her mother said.

Hermione ran to her room and grabbed the book she was currently reading. She followed her father outside to the car.

When they pulled up to the train station parking lot, Hermione got out and bid her father farewell. She looked around the crowds of Muggles and quickly jogged to Platform 9¾. She casually went through the barrier into an empty platform facing the Hogwarts Express. It felt weird because she was used to there being hundreds of people around her while getting on the train. She boarded and ran into the conductor.

"Oh, you're here," he said. "Well, we can go then. The other one's already on board. Take a seat."

Hermione traveled half-way down the isle and entered one of the compartments. She propped her feet up and opened her book, _Needful Things._

She'd only been reading a while when her compartment door opened and in walked Draco Malfoy. He smirked at her and sat down on the seat across from her.

"You're the other person Dumbledore wanted to see?" Hermione questioned.

"Obviously," he answered.

"What do you want?" she asked coldly.

"I got bored."

"So?" She looked back down to the pages of her book.

"Are you ever without a book," Draco commented. "I didn't know you liked Stephen King."

"I didn't know you _knew _who Stephen King was," Hermione said looking up. "How _do _you know who he is?"

"What? Do you actually think that a genius like that is Muggle?" Draco said.

"He's a wizard?" Hermione asked shocked.

"Oh you didn't know?" Draco smirked gleefully. "Finally I found something you knew nothing about."

Hermione didn't reply. She closed her book and sat up. She sighed heavily and stared at him. Draco had been persuaded over to the good side by Dumbledore after his father was put in prison. Draco had never truly wanted to be like his father. Hermione had decided that Draco wasn't as bad as she had thought. But that didn't erase the past. Just because they were on the same team didn't mean that she had to like him.

They sat in silence until Draco said, "Any idea why he wants us to meet him?"

"No," Hermione said flatly. She could think of about a hundred things she'd rather be doing than making small talk with the spoiled Slytherin brat.

He sighed and got up. Relieved to be left alone, Hermione went back to her reading until the train pulled to a halt.

She got off the train and saw Draco standing next to a carriage being pulled by an ugly horse-like creature. Hermione was slightly disturbed by it, but knew that she'd be able to see them now. She had now seen people die.

They got into the carriage and silently endured the bumpy ride to the castle. When they reached it they walked down the eerily empty halls to the Headmaster's office. The gargoyle that guarded the office was already to the side so they entered. Dumbledore was sitting at his desk looking over a long scroll of parchment. He looked up and said happily, "Oh, good! You've arrived. Please take a seat."

They sat in the leather chairs across from Dumbledore and anxiously waited for him to say whatever it was they came to hear. He rolled up the parchment, sighed, and smiled at them.

"The reason I requested you to come see me is that you two will be our Head Girl and Boy this coming year," he began.

Hermione was extremely excited until she remembered who was sitting next to her. "_He's _going to be Head Boy?" Hermione blurted out without thinking.

"Yes, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said without his smile faltering. "Now, obviously this news could have been delivered via mail, but there's another thing I must tell you. I realize that you two are not the best of friends. But I also realize you are not likely to get along in close quarters. So, I'm going to have you live together in a cabin by a lake. It will be secluded and I'll be checking in frequently. You'll be there until the school term begins. This is just to get you used to the idea of living in tight proximities."

Hermione and Draco looked at each other. A million thoughts ran though Hermione's mind. She was shocked. She snapped from her wondering when Dumbledore stood up. He handed them each an envelope and a badge.

"There are your book lists and Head badges," he said. "Have your parents take you back to Platform 9¾ in one week and the train will take you to the cabin. Well, I believe that's all. You may go."

Hermione walked out of the office with a stature of being in a trance. She walked quietly along side Draco outside. She didn't even remember reaching the train and re-boarding. She sat down and thought, _I have to live with Draco Malfoy? Oh, dear God._

**Please review!**


	2. I always get what I want

**Okay! Here's chapter two! I've got some great news! I'm getting the Internet hooked back up at my house so updates will be more frequent. Yay!**

**Chapter 2: I always get what I want**

Hermione awoke the morning she was to be taken to the cabin. Her stomach was turning and she felt nauseas. She pulled on her clothes and grabbed the suit cases that she'd packed the night before. Her mother smiled at her as she dragged them down the stairs.

"Ready?" she asked.

Hermione nodded and grabbed a piece of toast from the table. As her mother drove through the rain she kept glancing over at Hermione. "It won't be that bad," Mrs. Granger insisted. "You'll be fine. Ignore him if you have to."

"You obviously don't know Draco Malfoy," Hermione stated. "Because if you did, you'd know that he makes it almost _impossible _to ignore him."

"Oh, come on now," Mrs. Granger said. "I'm sure you'll be fine."

Hermione turned and stared out at the rain as it smacked roughly against her window. "Where are we going exactly?"

"Your Headmaster told me to drive to this address and you'd _Floo_ to the cabin," she said handing Hermione a piece of parchment. In curvy looped letters were the words "12 Grimauld Place." Memories flooded Hermione's mind and she closed her eyes. The address reminded her of Sirius. She hadn't been as close to Sirius as Harry was, of course, but she still felt sad when she thought about it.

After a long drive, the car stopped and Hermione's mother looked confused. "But where is it?" she asked.

"Don't worry, Mum," she said. She looked up and saw Draco standing under an umbrella looking annoyed. He seemed to be trying to guard his luggage from the rain because he had it stacked up behind him.

"Is that him?" Mrs. Granger questioned.

"Yeah."

"Oh, he's cute," she said.

"Ew, _Mum!"_

"Well, he is!" Mrs. Granger laughed.

Hermione pulled her jacket over her bushy hair and climbed out in disgust. She walked over to Draco. She waved goodbye to her mother as she drove off. Not even attempted to get under Draco's umbrella, Hermione shivered in the cold of the rain. Draco seemed to notice because, however reluctantly, he moved closer to her and adjusted the position of the umbrella.

"Thanks," she murmured. They stood awkwardly in the rain in front of the Black house. It had appeared out of nowhere. "Is it locked?"

"No," Draco said sarcastically. "I'm just standing out here getting rained on for my health."

Hermione ignored the comment and bundled her jacket around her. She could feel the water hitting the ground and bouncing back onto her jeans. She shivered again.

Draco looked at her for a moment and the sighed. "Here," he said abruptly shoving his jacket at her. "Will that shut you up?"

Hermione took the jacket and held it onto her chest like a blanket. It smelled just like Draco. After just a few more minutes Dumbledore Apparated in front of them. He took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. They walked into the dark, dry room. It wasn't much warmer until Dumbledore lit a fire with his wand. Hermione and Draco huddled in front of it and warmed up.

"So sorry it took so long," Dumbledore apologized. "I got caught up with some things at the school. Now, once you're warmed up I'll just let you Floo to the cabin."

After hovering over the fire for a while, Hermione and Draco prepared themselves to travel through the fireplace to the cabin. Dumbledore held out a tin can with the shiny white powder in it and each of them took a bit of it. Draco went first. He threw the powder in the blazing fire. The flames erupted and turned green. He put his luggage in, stepped inside himself, and said, "Dumbledore's cabin!"

Hermione did the same as Draco. When she stopped spinning she came out from a fireplace into the cabin. Draco was standing in front of her looking around the cabin with a look of despise on his pale face. Hermione looked around too. But she thought the cabin was nice. It wasn't too small or too big. There was a living room with a couch, coffee table, and a squishy chair in the corner. To the left was a nice kitchen with a counter separating it from the living room. To the front of the living room were two doors. Hermione supposed those were the bedrooms.

Dumbledore's smiling head appeared in the fire. "Well," it said. "Here you are. I'm sure everything will be fine. Remember I'll be checking in periodically to see how things are. The food and things will magically re-stock when you get low. The bedrooms are over there," his head motioned toward the two doors. "Good luck." He disappeared.

Hermione picked up her luggage and set it in front of the two doors. Draco did the same. They each opened a door and peered into the rooms. At the same time they said, "I want that one." Each pointed to the larger room on the right.

"Oh, come on!" Hermione said. "I'm a girl. I need a bigger room."

"What does you being a girl got to do with anything?" he asked. "I'm used to larger living space. I think you should let me have it."

"No," Hermione said persistently. "I won't. We need to figure out a logical way to decide."

"I'm getting the bigger one," Draco said stubbornly. "I always get what I want."

"Malfoy," Hermione replied. "You _can't_ always get what you want. You need to learn that now." She looked around the room and saw a stack of Chocolate Frog Wizard trading cards on the coffee table. She picked them up and shuffled them. "We'll draw a card and whoever has the more powerful wizard gets the big room. Okay?"

Draco reluctantly nodded. Hermione shuffled the cards and spread them face down on the coffee table. She drew her card first and looked at it. It was some witch from the eighteenth century. She sighed. Draco picked his card and got Merlin.

"I told you I always get what I want," he said with a smirk.

Hermione sighed and dragged her luggage to the smaller room. She lay on her bed and picked up her book. She decided to unpack later. She rolled over and saw another door on the far wall beside an empty dresser. It led straight to Draco's room.

_Oh great, _Hermione thought. She rolled over again so her back was to the door. She read silently until she drifted off to sleep.

**Please review!**


	3. Give it to me NOW!

**Thanks to my reviewers! I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update but here is chapter three! Some of you like the old version better and some of you like this one better. But my other one is lost forever now. So if you like it better I'm sorry, this version will have to do.**

**Elizabeth the 4rth****- **I know I do have a lot of fics going on at one time. But I just have so many ideas I can't wait to start writing them. It would be much easier to just focus on one fic but I can't do that. I am going to try to not to ignore this one as much anymore. You'll just have to not give up on me. All of my fics will be finished though. I will never ever discontinue one. I despise when people do that. I'll finish all my fics even if I start to hate them. So don't worry. Thanks for the reviews and I hope you continue to enjoy my stories.

**Chapter 3: Give it to me _now_!**

Hermione groggily rolled over and opened her eyes. She sat up slowly and looked around her room. She rubbed her face with both hands and then ran them through her bushy hair which was now a little tangled. Getting up she stumbled slightly because she wasn't fully awake. She made her way to the window that was beside her bed and peered outside through the curtains.

She was hoping to see the sun shining but it was still gray and rainy. The water was coming down in sheets even harder than it had been before. She watched it pound against the window for a few minutes before she felt her stomach grumble in hunger. Her hand went to it and she groaned. She really didn't want to go out and have to be around Draco but she knew she really didn't have much of a choice.

She opened her bedroom door and a wonderful aroma hit her. She smelled tomato sauce and garlic bread. The scent made her wander to the kitchen where she saw Draco standing at the stove stirring the sauce.

"Malfoy?" she questioned, surprised. "You cook?"

"Yes," he replied plainly. "Why do you sound so shocked?"

"Well," she began, "it is a little shocking. I never imagined Draco Malfoy to be a cook before."

"I'm not a cook per say," he said continuing the task. "I'm just pretty good at it." He carefully removed the pot of noodles from the stove and drained them in the sink.

"Why is that though?" she asked sitting down at the small round table in the middle of the kitchen. "I would assume that you'd have servants or something to do your cooking for you. Or you'd make a poor house-elf do it."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Well, yes most of our meals were prepared by the help. But my father would be at mee…gone and my mother would be out shopping or something and I'd get bored so I decided to teach myself to cook. It's basically following a recipe."

"Hmm…" Hermione thought. She knew he had almost said his father would be at meetings. But she decided to ignore it. It wasn't like she didn't know that Draco's dad was a Death Eater. "Well, I guess you learn something new everyday."

Draco didn't reply. He continued preparing the food. When he was finished he made their plates and they sat at the table and ate in almost complete silence. Hermione felt awkward but she didn't want to be the one to break the quiet. She ate slowly trying to avert her eyes from Draco.

Without conversation Hermione didn't have much to focus on except for Draco's appearance. Her eyes kept wondering over to him. She hated to admit it but she knew her mother was right. Draco Malfoy was gorgeous. From his white-blond hair to his seemingly pedicured toes he could almost be considered a piece of art. His features were soft but he was still very handsome. Her eyes traveled down his body and to his chest and stomach. She knew that under his t-shirt had to be muscles and a carved six-pack. She shook her head as if to clear her mind when she'd found herself gazing at his lips. There was only one word to describe them: kissable. He had a sort of pouting bottom lip that she knew would be fun to nibble on. When she realized that it was wrong for her to have thoughts like that about someone she was supposed to hate she shook her head as if to clear her mind.

When they were finished eating Draco moved to pick up the plates but Hermione stopped him. "You cooked, I'll do the dishes," she stated.

Draco simply nodded and went to his room. As she stood at the sink cleaning the dishes they'd used she thought about how odd it was that they were getting along so well. She couldn't remember a time in her life when she was in the presence of a Malfoy and she didn't have the urge to throw something very heavy at his head. But if she had to be stuck there with him she might as well just learn to cope and deal with him. As long as they could just at least be civil to one another then they'd be fine.

She heard Draco's door open and close again and she turned around. He was holding a notebook and was reading it intently. Hermione paused for a moment. She thought and thought and then noticed that the notebook belonged to her. Anger coursed through her veins.

She shot towards him as if she was sitting on a spring. "What the hell are you doing going through my stuff!" she yelled.

Draco ignored her shouting and continued to read.

"Look!" she said as she reached him and made a grab for it. Unfortunately Draco was taller than her and he could easily hold the item out of her reach. "That is _my _personal property and you have no right to just go in my room and take it!"

"This is pretty good," he said continuing to disregard her obvious rage. Hermione blushed. "I didn't know you liked to write."

"It's just a hobby," she said still reaching up for her notebook.

"Well, you're good at your hobby," he complimented.

"Please give it back," she whispered.

"No," he responded bluntly.

Hermione was becoming even more irritated. "Give it to me _now_!" she screamed.

Draco made a break for it and ran toward his bedroom. He tried to shut the door on her but she was too quick for him. Hermione squeezed through and chased him until he fell on his bed. She fell on top of him all the while reaching anxiously for her notebook.

They were both laughing at this point. Strangely, it didn't feel weird for her to be acting this was with Draco. The only other person she'd ever played around with like that was Ron, though. And she'd been flirting in those instances.

_Oh, God, _she thought. _Am I flirting now? No, I can't be. I can't be flirting with Draco Malfoy…Can I?_

She was finally able to catch Draco off guard and grabbed the notebook away from him. She hopped up from his bed and stared at him.

"Never, _ever_ do anything like that again," she demanded. She walked through the door connecting their rooms and slammed it. She didn't know if she was more upset at Draco or herself.

A million thoughts ran through her head at one time. She really had been flirting with him. She put her head in her hands in shame as she sat on her bed. For some odd reason she couldn't help but feel like she'd been cheating on Ron. Technically, she really hadn't for two reasons. One, it's not like she'd kissed Draco or anything; and two, she and Ron weren't exactly going out.

They had kissed a few times. But neither of them could really gather up the courage to initiate a relationship beyond friendship. Hermione's reason was that she didn't want to ruin their friendship. She wasn't sure what Ron's was but she had the feeling he was just terrified of commitment.

"I didn't do anything wrong," she told herself. She got up and put her notebook back in her dresser. She decided it was probably time to get started unpacking. And that she did.

It only took about an hour for her to get everything the way she wanted it. When she finished she went to her window yet again and saw that it was still raining. She sighed. There was a beautiful lake behind the cabin that she wanted to swim in. But as long as it was raining she wouldn't be able to.

She got up and stretched. She looked at the clock on the wall and noticed it was now nine o' clock. Since she'd taken a nap she wasn't a bit tired. Remembering she hadn't finished the dishes earlier she decided she'd do those.

Entering the living room she was caught by surprise because Draco was asleep on the couch. That wasn't what surprised her though. What surprised her was how peaceful he looked. She inched quietly closer to him and looked down upon his motionless body.

His face was so calm and with his blond hair he looked almost angelic. She couldn't believe that was the same person who had practically tortured her and her friends all the years they'd been in Hogwarts together. His golden hair fell into his eyes as he lay serenely sleeping and his body seemed to hold a weightless quality.

She sighed and left him alone. As she washed the dishes she couldn't help but think about how attractive Draco was. The fact that she'd hated his guts for the past six years had always kept her from seeing how good-looking he was. But the truth was that deep down she'd always known that he was gorgeous. It wasn't fair that such a beautiful person could have such a cold heart.

When she'd finished the dishes she went to her room and grabbed her book. She sat in the squishy chair in the living room and lay with her legs across one arm and her back against the other. She read contently every now and then pausing to gaze over at Draco's snoozing form.

**Woo…I know this chapter isn't that great but eh…at least I updated! I hope the next one is better and I'm going to try and update this fic a little more often. Please review!**


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